


The Lying Game

by crowry



Series: Small World [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-07
Updated: 2011-11-07
Packaged: 2017-10-25 20:45:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/274605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crowry/pseuds/crowry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Terezi is sharp enough to know when to call Vriska out and when to call her closer. Vriska has always liked this about her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Lying Game

"So when are you going to introduce me to your lusus," Terezi asks, sniffing one of the scrolls on your desk disinterestedly. You laugh.

"How about never," you say. You don't mean that. You don't mean a lot of the things you say, but you find yourself saying them anyway. "Come on," you whine. "You don't want to meet her, that's so boring."

She takes her time shuffling through a small, hidebound book of names, occasionally pressing her tongue to the paper and smearing your ink to hell before she answers. "I don't think it's boring," she says. "Especially since you're never going to meet my lusus."

"Oh, lame!" you say, lightly, but you're starting to get upset. Terezi is sharp everywhere, tongue and horns and mind, and you like her that way, but this is uncalled for. "You're such a hypocrite, wow!"

"I'm not! You can't meet my lusus because she's dead," Terezi says, emphasizing the word "dead" with a considerable amount of venom.

"Bullshit," you say. "That's such a fucking lie and we both know it!"

"It's not," she insists. "It's not!"

"Oh it is _too_ ," you say. "Wow, I never thought you'd tell such a huge lie just because you're ashamed of how lame your lusus is. That's something only boring people do, Terezi."

She huffs angrily, backlit with the glow of the imperial city coming through your fenestration, and bites out, "She was a magnificent dragon."

You nearly cry, you're laughing so hard.

"You're such a liar," you say. She's such a liar! Dragons are fake--you know this like you know your blood color and your hive number. You know this like you know that your lusus doesn't fucking want to meet Terezi, and you know it like you know you don't want Terezi to meet your lusus.

 _You_ don't even want to know your lusus, sometimes. She's nothing but trouble for you. You lay back on your bed, where you fell to laugh, and look at her down your nose.

"I don't care if you believe me," she says, but you know that's the biggest lie of all.

"There's never going to be any proof," you say. "This is going to destroy our friendship."

She rolls her eyes, sitting down at the edge of the bed. "This isn't a friendship," she says, "and you could find proof if you wanted."

"Terezi," you whine. "You're being all cryptic and stupid and I hate it."

"Good," she says. "I said I don't care."

You lie there for a while, staring at the line of her shoulders. It feels like she's waiting for something. This is possibly the lamest thing she's done this perigree.

You knee her in the back.

"You're so slow," she says, flopping down recklessly beside you, a horn narrowly missing your eye. Her face is twisted up in hatey contempt for how stupid you are. It makes you want to bite her nose. "Read my mind."

"Oh," you say, and then you turn your head to look at her. She's facing the ceiling but her eyes are on you, vicious and sharp. She's never given you permission to try your affinity on her before, even though you know she practices on you sometimes. You can't help the grin that breaks out over your face.

She hauls herself up and settles with her arms on your abdomen, legs between yours. "Come on, Vriska, I thought you were _so_ good at this," she mocks.

"Whatever," you snap. "Keep your eyes open, Terezi."

At seven sweeps, you haven't had a whole lot of time to perfect your ability. Later, there will be so many irons in the fire that sometimes even you will get confused, and you'll be able to read a mind and lift a stranger's finger from halfway across this miserable planet. But today you're in your respiteblock and Terezi isn't blinking. You concentrate your vision eightfold as directly as you can, looking straight into the yellow of her luminescent eyes.

There's a small white flash and then a barrage on your senses--colorful scales, the smell of fruit and mint and fresh water, trees everywhere in stunning colors too bright to be real, and then it's there, so clear in her mind, the great white face of a dragon, and her small hand between its eyes.

" _Oh_ ," you say. "Wow."

She doesn't even give you the satisfaction of hearing her say _I told you so_.

  


  



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